Tuesday, December 26, 2006

Sofia. Between 150 – 200 people took part in today’s protest in Skopje, which was organized by the World Macedonian Congress (WMC) in support of the Macedonian minority in Bulgaria, the WMC chairman Todor Petrov told FOCUS News Agency.According to Petrov the protest, which continued for two hours, had passed “peacefully and befittingly”.The initial intentions of the protest organizers to hand a declaration with their demands to the Chairman of the Macedonian Parliament Ljubisa Gjorgievski have failed because Gjorgievski had had and “important meeting”.“We handed the declaration of the EU Special Representative to Macedonia Erwan Fouere with the demand EU to put pressure on the Bulgarian authorities and make them register OMO Ilinden Pirin”, Petrov pointed out. Fouere has promised to forward the declaration and to inform them after he receives some answer on the demand.WMC chairman added that the protest has ended after the depositing a declaration to the archive of the Macedonian parliament.Due to the engagement of the parliament speaker Mr Gjorgievski, protesters representatives have met with the head of Gjorgievksi’s cabinet.“Now we will start lobbying for the declaration’s inclusion in the parliament’s agenda”, Petrov said.